


That Would Be Enough

by sapphire_child



Series: Season 12 Bits [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Body Dysmorphia, Coda, Episode: s12e01 Keep Calm and Carry On, Gen, Mary-Centric, Men of Letters Bunker, Post-Episode: s12e01 Keep Calm and Carry On, also Dean talks about getting throw pillows for her room, or Mary is wigged out because her body clearly isn't 28 anymore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-24 13:42:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8374285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphire_child/pseuds/sapphire_child
Summary: She tries to trace the lines of her face as subtly as she can as they drive, hyper aware of Dean’s gaze on her. Her fingertips learn laugh lines and the beginning of crow’s feet that were not put there by her and she suddenly feels so nauseous that she has to roll down the window.
As if being raised from the dead wasn't stressful enough, Mary also has to cope with being dumped into a body that's at least twenty years older than the one she was in when she died.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _Look at where you are  
>  Look at where you started  
> The fact that you’re alive is a miracle_

Her body doesn’t feel like her own.

Mary notices the differences both immediately, and incrementally. She is startled to realise that her breasts haven’t swelled with the heaviness of milk, but only when she is picking out bras at the first strip mall they find on the way to Lebanon. There’s a brief pang of loss there, but it would have only been a hassle and a heartbreak for her if she was still lactating for a baby who is all grown up and so she does her best to shrug it off.

As she inches into a new pair of jeans she catches a glimpse of her silhouette in the mirror and pauses once again. Her stretch marks, which had still been livid from her pregnancy with Sam are more faded than they have any right to be. Her skin seems finer too, aged and soft on her thighs and belly. She presses her fingers cautiously to her mid-section, but quickly shakes herself out of her funk.

Dean is waiting for her.

He’s been trying to reach Sam, but he hasn’t answered his phone and though Dean is trying to play down how worried he is for her sake Mary can tell that he’s tense by the set of his shoulders. The beginnings of dread forms a pit in her belly as they drive, and Mary tries not to look in the rear view mirror of the car that Dean had easily stolen.

She’s not sure that she’ll recognise the face that looks back at her.

Mary’s body doesn’t look or feel like the 28-year-old mother of two children she was when she died, but she doesn’t think she’s quite aged enough to be pushing the 60 she would have been if she had lived. She tries to trace the lines of her face as subtly as she can as they drive, hyper aware of Dean’s gaze on her. Her fingertips learn laugh lines and the beginning of crow’s feet that were not put there by her and she suddenly feels so nauseous that she has to roll down the window.

It’s the hands that finally tip her over the edge.

She has wrung them together to warm them, and out of agitation, but she hasn’t properly looked at them until after she stabs the woman who rammed their car. The blade, which belongs to Castiel, is light and beautifully balanced. Truly a masterful piece of weaponry, and undoubtedly one worthy of heaven.

She only holds it as long as she needs to (until Dean checks that the woman really is dead) and then she hands it over as quickly as she can. As the boys go about hiding the body, Mary staggers back to the Impala and sits heavily in the front seat. Her head is pounding from the crash, and her neck is stiffening as well. She thinks perhaps it has been thrown out from the impact.

She looks down at her hands, _really_ looks down at them for the first time since she had been so rudely resurrected, and she feels nausea bubbling up all over again.

Mary’s hands are older than she is. The lines of her palm are deeper, the skin drier. The knuckles of her fingers are thickened with age, perhaps with the beginnings of arthritis like her own mother had. She’s thankful that there is no blood on them – this is too close to a nightmare as it is. A wonderful, terrible dream where her children are alive but undoubtedly damaged, where her baby has been kidnapped and her sweet little boy, her gentle, loving Dean has been hardened almost beyond the point of recognition.

Mary takes in a shaky breath and when Dean asks her if she’s alright she doesn’t even bother trying to lie to him. She is most definitely not okay, but she also doesn’t need to burden him with her concerns that her body doesn’t truly belong to her anymore. There’s too much else at stake, too much to worry about without getting bogged down with her something as stupid as her body somehow aging a whole bunch of years when she was resurrected by Gods sister.

When they finally arrive back at the bunker and Dean shows her to the showers she makes a point of not looking at herself until she has washed her face clean. She carefully wipes the steamed up mirror clear and regards her face closely.

Her skin has aged. It’s beginning to fold into fine lines – and not just at the corners of her mouth and her eyes. There’s also more softness to her neck and jawline than she remembers. But she recognises the cool blue-greens of her irises, the slightly crooked line of her nose when she turns her face. She reaches up a hand to touch her skin, raises her eyebrows and considers the deepening lines on her forehead.

If she’s in 2016 then Dean is due to turn 38, in January of next year. So Sam is 34 – six more years than she managed. Would it be better or worse for them, she wonders, if she had come back as she had been when she died? Perhaps Gods sister thought it would be easier on her boys if she looked more like she would have if she had still been alive.

The robe Dean has left for her (“It gets pretty draughty in here sometimes.”) is snug and soft. By the time she has gotten dressed, trying it around her waist over her new pyjamas and found her way through the labyrinthine corridors Castiel has already left. Dean is adorably awkward, almost shy as he shows her to the bedroom he’s set up for her with clean sheets and soft blankets.

“It’s not much.” He apologises, reflexive in a way that shows it’s a learned habit. “I know it’s a bit…bare right now. But we can get you some stuff once we’ve found Sam. Get you settled. Make it a bit more homey. You know, throw pillows or something…”

He falters to a stop when she turns to him and grasps his hands. She smiles and is pleased to feel her lips form a familiar smile.

That’s one thing at least that hasn’t changed.

“It’s perfectly fine.” Mary tells him. “Thank you.” On impulse, she leans up on tip toes so she can plant a quick kiss against his stubble. Her hand presses against his other cheek, holding him steady. It’s just as well really, given Dean’s reaction. HisHis eyelashes flutter, and he momentarily looks like he’s been beaten across the head with something blunt and heavy. He all but trips over his own feet on the way out, mumbling a good night and Mary watches him go with only a twinge of loss.

The bed is unfamiliar, but it’s soft and inviting. Under the covers, she curls in on herself and thinks about the weathered planes of her eldest sons face. She wonders about Sam, tries to recall details from the slightly blurry photograph that Dean had showed her on his phone.

She wraps her arms around her changed, aged body, feels her softening mid-section and the strong but slight muscles in her arms tensing and releasing as she does so.

A lot may have changed in the intervening years since her death, but the core of who she is remains unaltered in a lot of ways. She’s always prided herself on her adaptability. Turns out that pragmatism is a handy skill to have when you’re thrust into the future into a body that seems to have been aged just enough to quiet any question of her legitimacy as the mother of her boys. She’s already been through two pregnancies, and all of the havoc that it wrought upon her. She’s killed monsters and humans, and died and been resurrected.

And now she’s here, she thinks. And whatever she is, whoever she is, it will just have to be enough for now.


End file.
